MU recruit Berkstresser significantly schooled in spread

For Eric Thomas and Corbin Berkstresser, their one season together as coach and quarterback at Lee’s Summit was a match made in heaven — if heaven is a no-huddle spread offense.

For the next few days, we preview Missouri’s 2011 football recruiting class, which becomes official Wednesday, national signing day.

QUARTERBACK

Expected to sign

Corbin Berkstresser,

Lee’s Summit H.S.

Returning for 2011

James Franklin, Soph.

Ashton Glaser, Soph.

Tyler Gabbert, RsFr.

TAILBACK

Expected to sign

None

Returning for 2011

De’Vion Moore, Sr.

Kendial Lawrence, Jr.

Henry Josey, Soph.

Marcus Murphy, Soph.

Greg White, RsFr.

Thomas inherited an established senior quarterback to run his offense last fall. Even better for the school’s new head coach, Berkstresser was already committed to a college program, sparing a season’s worth of college visits and distractions.

Meanwhile, Berkstresser found a head coach with an established record as a spread-offense specialist. Their season together would be an apprenticeship for the 6-foot-4, 230-pound Berkstresser, who will headline Missouri’s recruiting class when it’s unveiled Wednesday on national signing day.

Berkstresser is the only offensive back expected to sign with Missouri, which has few spots to fill because of a small departing senior class.

Committed to MU since June 2009, Berkstresser thrived in Thomas’ system last fall, completing 61 percent of his passes for 3,383 yards, 36 touchdowns and just six interceptions — production that would typically attract a stack of scholarship offers from the country’s blue-blood programs. But with his early pledge to MU, where both parents and several other family members attended, Berkstresser probably cost himself some prestige during the recruiting process.

Not that he cared.

“Corbin’s always known he wanted to be at MU,” said Thomas, who served as Hickman’s offensive coordinator in 2008-09. “That’s what he always wanted to do.”

Skip Stitzell heard the same from Berkstresser. The quarterback coach has trained Berkstresser at his Fayette-based camp the last four years. After the QB said he was committing to Missouri, Stitzell wanted to make sure he was hearing him right.

“I said, ‘Look, you’re telling me if Texas or Oklahoma or USC or whoever comes along in the next year and a half, you already know that Missouri’s the only place you want to be?’ ” Stitzell said. “And he says, ‘Yep.’ ”

“I’ll be honest in saying that when I got here,” Thomas added, “I was happy that he had already accepted an offer so we could just go play football. We didn’t have to worry about the combines and the college visits. … He could have been a big-time recruit if he would have dragged it out. But if you know where you want to be, why play that game?”

The only game that mattered for Berkstresser last year was mastering Thomas’ offense, which resembles Missouri’s, Thomas said.

“Getting to work with Eric Thomas, who I think is one of just a handful high school coaches who really knows how to coach the spread … that was great for Corbin,” Stitzell said, “because he was working with someone who taught him how to read defenses out of the spread and what you’re looking for to beat certain defenses and certain coverages.”

After getting a crash course in Thomas’ system, Berkstresser told Stitzell he was “embarrassed” with how much he didn’t know about reading coverages and directing an offense.

“But I told him, ‘You’re dealing with someone who’s at the upper level of teaching the spread,’ ” Stitzell said. “It worked out well for him, and that’s why his numbers skyrocketed.”

In Berkstresser, the Tigers have landed a quarterback who has doubled as a standout pitcher in baseball, an experience that Stitzell said has made Berkstresser a more advanced thrower for his age.

“He plays with his feet underneath him,” Stitzell said. “In other words, he doesn’t have a tendency to overstride and get himself in trouble in that way. … And he very rarely throws off his back foot because of being a pitcher for as long as he was, he just has that natural transfer of his weight moving forward.”

Thomas said Berkstresser has a stronger arm than any quarterback he’s coached, but in their brief time together, he learned how to feather passes through coverages, especially the difficult finesse throws behind the linebackers and in front of the safeties — the same “two-ball” passes that are essential to the Missouri passing game.

“In the past, it was always, ‘I’m going to throw it as hard as I can, and I’m going to get it there,’ ” Thomas said. “This year, I thought he really started to develop a lot of touch.”

A punishing runner on the designed read plays in Thomas’ offense, Berkstresser factored into the rushing attack, too, accounting for 692 rushing yards and 12 scores last year.

“That’s what people don’t get about him,” Thomas said. “You think quarterback, you think not very physical. But Corbin could start for a lot of people at linebacker. He’s an aggressive, physical kid.”

At Missouri, he’ll step into a quarterback group that lost its only player with starting experience, Blaine Gabbert, who entered the NFL draft after his junior season and leaves the Tigers with three scholarship quarterbacks who just completed their first or second year in the program.

Still a newborn in the spread offense, Berkstresser could figure into the competition, too, perhaps sooner than later.

“He meant the world to this team, and I don’t know what the hell we’re going to do without him,” Thomas said. “But Missouri’s lucky to have him. I do know that.”

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